All Media is Biased

Claire Celsi is the Director of Public Relations at Lessing-Flynn in Des Moines, Iowa.

During the recent George Zimmerman trial, I heard every
conceivable angle on each minute detail coming out of the day’s proceedings…ad
nauseum.

After the verdict, every person, radio commentator, every
news program and talk show had a parade of experts on, touting their angle and
their opinion. Like our country, the bias for one side or the other was on full
display.

I cringe when I hear people decry the bias of their hometown
newspaper or popular cable news network. They are under the assumption that
we’re playing by the same journalistic rules that we were 50 years ago.

Back then, there were a few “major” newspapers, three
networks, no cable news shows, no internet and no social media. We were all
“fed” the same information and didn’t have news sources that catered
specifically to our belief system or political persuasion. Of course, there
were magazines and newspapers on the fringe of the discussion, but they didn’t
have an influence on the culture as a whole.

Now, the situation is very different. Each of us are able to
watch, listen, read or surf wherever we want, at the click of a button. It’s
much easier to find “information” that caters to our underlying belief system.
Unfortunately, that is also what’s behind the polarization of our politics and
an increasing gap between fact and reality.

One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself in this
information age is to learn how to sort out fact from fiction. Identify a few
news sources that you can really trust, and then brush up on your old school
investigative methods to sift out the spin.

Here are some of the resources I use to find the information
I’m looking for to discern the day’s news.

The library. Public libraries are packed with reputable resources. Ask your friendly local librarian for a tour
of the reference section. A lot of these databases are available from their
online as well.

Transcripts: If you’re looking to prove a point,
there’s nothing more powerful than an official transcript.

Scientific studies by independent sources.
Credible sources don’t have a stake in the argument one way or another. One
example that comes to mind is the Pew Research Center.

Snopes - If you get an email or see a Facebook post that seems a little hokey, especially if it's asking you to believe something you haven't seen in the news, check it on Snopes.com. This website independently verifies whether it's true, false, or somewhere in between.

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Comments

Snopes.com lost its credibility for me when I found out it owned by George Soros, the deep pocketed, left-of-left, tycoon. Any email that is negative about Obama is automatically FALSE on snopes.com. It might be just as dependable to ask the White House to verify stories about their dalliances.

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